Sunday, February 25, 2007

8000 Female Hadith Scholars

Research: 8000 Female Hadith Scholars

This is an interesting development. Most of the opposition to this will come from a small, very small, tiny, weeny group of insecure Muslim men (make no mistake about it, it is not just Muslim men, all little men act like that ). Men who need to grow up and accept that whether male or female, child or senior, all are fully capable of dealing everything about Deen and Duniya.

The only superiority one can achieve is, how humble one is and how much good one does to Allah's whole creation. It is the Taqwa. It is ironic and paradoxical, that the exalted one is the most humble one.

Is there a need to feel superior? Absolutely not. Every ritual in Islam is geared to make us think and feel equal and most importantly humble. Arrogance and spirituality are inversely proportional to each other. Meaning - higher the arrogance, lower the Taqwa, lower the arrogance, higher degree of Taqwa.

Indeed, God is an equal opportunity creator, he has created a binary world, world of action and reaction. There are hundreds of verses where the opposites are mentioned equal number of times. Balance is the ultimate goal, for us Muslims through the concepts of Justice, Fasting, Salat and Zakat we can strive for that elusive balance. When there is justice, just nations, just businesses, just relationships, just economies and just laws, every one in the society will progress. This is not communism, where equality is forced, it is accomplished through choice and free will. One may want to be a millionaire and others may just want to earn a little and live a life, that is their choice, nothing superior or inferior about it, as long as Just means are employed to get there.

Our community, whether Muslim or not, can uplift itself by absorbing the essence of Islam - that of Justness. We should take away all the un-wanted barriers for every individual from desiring to contribute towards the overall development of the community. If we cannot encourage the strivers, we should learn to shut up.

For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the stock image of an Islamic scholar is a gray-bearded man. Women tend to be seen as the subjects of Islamic law rather than its shapers. And while some opportunities for religious education do exist for women — the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo has a women’s college, for example, and there are girls’ madrasas and female study groups in mosques and private homes — cultural barriers prevent most women in the Islamic world from pursuing such studies. Recent findings by a scholar at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies in Britain, however, may help lower those barriers and challenge prevalent notions of women’s roles within Islamic society. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a 43-year-old Sunni alim, or religious scholar, has rediscovered a long-lost tradition of Muslim women teaching the Koran, transmitting hadith (deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) and even making Islamic law as jurists.

Akram embarked eight years ago on a single-volume biographical dictionary of female hadith scholars, a project that took him trawling through biographical dictionaries, classical texts, madrasa chronicles and letters for relevant citations. “I thought I’d find maybe 20 or 30 women,” he says. To date, he has found 8,000 of them, dating back 1,400 years, and his dictionary now fills 40 volumes. It’s so long that his usual publishers, in Damascus and Beirut, have balked at the project, though an English translation of his preface — itself almost 400 pages long — will come out in England this summer. (Akram has talked with Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the United States, about the possibility of publishing the entire work through his Riyadh-based foundation.)

The dictionary’s diverse entries include a 10th-century Baghdad-born jurist who traveled through Syria and Egypt, teaching other women; a female scholar — or muhaddithat — in 12th-century Egypt whose male students marveled at her mastery of a “camel load” of texts; and a 15th-century woman who taught hadith at the Prophet’s grave in Medina, one of the most important spots in Islam. One seventh-century Medina woman who reached the academic rank of jurist issued key fatwas on hajj rituals and commerce; another female jurist living in medieval Aleppo not only issued fatwas but also advised her far more famous husband on how to issue his.Not all of these women scholars were previously unknown. Many Muslims acknowledge that Islam has its learned women, particularly in the field of hadith, starting with the Prophet’s wife Aisha. And several Western academics have written on women’s religious education. About a century ago, the Hungarian Orientalist Ignaz Goldziher estimated that about 15 percent of medieval hadith scholars were women. But Akram’s dictionary is groundbreaking in its scope.Indeed, read today, when many Muslim women still don’t dare pray in mosques, let alone lecture leaders in them, Akram’s entry for someone like Umm al-Darda, a prominent jurist in seventh-century Damascus, is startling. As a young woman, al-Darda used to sit with male scholars in the mosque, talking shop. “I’ve tried to worship Allah in every way,” she wrote, “but I’ve never found a better one than sitting around, debating other scholars.” She went on to teach hadith and fiqh, or law, at the mosque, and even lectured in the men’s section; her students included the caliph of Damascus. She shocked her contemporaries by praying shoulder to shoulder with men — a nearly unknown practice, even now — and issuing a fatwa, still cited by modern scholars, that allowed women to pray in the same position as men.

It’s after the 16th century that citations of women scholars dwindle. Some historians venture that this is because Islamic education grew more formal, excluding women as it became increasingly oriented toward establishing careers in the courts and mosques. (Strangely enough, Akram found that this kind of exclusion also helped women become better scholars. Because they didn’t hold official posts, they had little reason to invent or embellish prophetic traditions.)Akram’s work has led to accusations that he is championing free mixing between men and women, but he says that is not so. He maintains that women students should sit at a discreet distance from their male classmates or co-worshipers, or be separated by a curtain. (The practice has parallels in Orthodox Judaism.)

The Muslim women who taught men “are part of our history,” he says. “It doesn’t mean you have to follow them. It’s up to people to decide.” Neverthless, Akram says he hopes that uncovering past hadith scholars could help reform present-day Islamic culture. Many Muslims see historical precedents — particularly when they date back to the golden age of Muhammad — as blueprints for sound modern societies and look to scholars to evaluate and interpret those precedents. Muslim feminists like the Moroccan writer Fatima Mernissi and Kecia Ali, a professor at Boston University, have cast fresh light on women’s roles in Islamic law and history, but their worldview — and their audiences — are largely Western or Westernized. Akram is a working alim, lecturing in mosques and universities and dispensing fatwas on issues like inheritance and divorce. “Here you’ve got a guy who’s coming from the tradition, who knows the stuff and who’s able to give us that level of detail which is missing in the self-proclaimed progressive Muslim writers,” says James Piscatori, a professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University.

The erosion of women’s religious education in recent times, Akram says, reflects “decline in every aspect of Islam.” Flabby leadership and a focus on politics rather than scholarship has left Muslims ignorant of their own history. Islam’s current cultural insecurity has been bad for both its scholarship and its women, Akram says. “Our traditions have grown weak, and when people are weak, they grow cautious. When they’re cautious, they don’t give their women freedoms.”When Akram lectures, he dryly notes, women are more excited by this history than men. To persuade reluctant Muslims to educate their girls, Akram employs a potent debating strategy: he compares the status quo to the age of al jahiliya, the Arabic term for the barbaric state of pre-Islamic Arabia. (Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, the godfather of modern Islamic extremism, have employed the comparison to very different effect.) Barring Muslim women from education and religious authority, Akram argues, is akin to the pre-Islamic custom of burying girls alive. “I tell people, ‘God has given girls qualities and potential,’ ” he says. “If they aren’t allowed to develop them, if they aren’t provided with opportunities to study and learn, it’s basically a live burial.”

When I spoke with him, Akram invoked a favorite poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray’s 18th-century lament for dead English farmers. “Gray said that villagers could have been like Milton,” if only they’d had the chance, Akram observes. “Muslim women are in the same situation. There could have been so many Miltons.”Carla Power is a London-based journalist who writes about Islamic issues.

We as Muslims plan to respond to pastor Terry Jones' planned burning of 3000 copies of Quran on September 11, 2013 in positive terms.

Our response - we will reclaim the standard of behavior practiced by the Prophet concerning “scurrilous and hostile criticism of the Qur’an” (Muhammad Asad Translation Note 31, verse 41:34). It was "To overcome evil with good is good, and to resist evil by evil is evil." It is also strongly enjoined in the Qur’an in the same verse 41:34, “Good and evil deeds are not equal. Repel evil with what is better; then you will see that one who was once your enemy has become your dearest friend.”

God willing Muslims will follow the divine guidance and pray for the restoration of Goodwill, and on that day many Muslim organizations will go on a “blood drive” to save lives and serve humanity with kindness.

We invite fellow Americans of all faiths, races, and ethnicities to join us to rededicate the pledge, “One nation under God”, and to build a cohesive America where no American has to live in apprehension, discomfort or fear of fellow Americans. This event is a substitute for our 10th Annual Unity Day Celebration (www.UnitydayUSA.com) held in Dallas, but now it will be at Mulberry, Florida.

Unwittingly Pastor Jones has done us a favor by invigorating us by his decision to burn nearly 3000 copies Quran on September 11, 2013. Obviously he is not satisfied by the notoriety he garnered by burning one Qur'an last year.

As Muslims and citizens we honor the free speech guaranteed in our constitution. We have no intentions to criticize, condemn or oppose Pastor Terry Jones' freedom of expression. Instead, we will be donating blood and praying for goodness to permeate in our society.

We plan to follow Jesus Christ (pbuh), a revered prophet in Islam as well as Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) – that of mitigating the conflicts and nurturing good will for the common good of the society.

We hope, this event and the message will remind Muslims elsewhere in the world as well, that violence is not the way. Muslims, who react violently to senseless provocation, should realize that, violence causes more violence, and besmirches the name of the religion that we hold so dear. We believe that Prophet Muhammad was a mercy to the mankind, and we ought to practice what we believe and preach. We must not insult Islam by the negative reactions of a few.

We can only hope it will bring about a change in the attitude of the followers of Pastor Jones, and in the behavior of those Muslims who reacted violently the last time Pastor sought notoriety – We hope this small step towards a bridge to peaceful coexistence would propel us towards building a cohesive society.

Like most Americans a majority of Muslims quietly go about their own business, but it is time to speak up and take positive action instead of negative reaction. May this message of peace and goodwill reverberate and reach many shores.

Lastly, we appreciate the Citizens of Mulberry, Florida, Honorable Mayor George Hatch, City Commissioners, police and Fire Chiefs for handing this situation very well. This will add a ‘feather of peace’ in the City’s reputation. We hope Mulberry will be a catalyst in showing the way in handling conflict with dignity and peace.

We thank the Media for giving value to the work towards peace rather than conflict.

CIVIL DIALOGUE

The people in Dallas are making an effort to understand and clean their own hearts first, when we are free from bias, it would be easy to share that with others. Islam teaches us in so many ways to "respect the otherness of others" and it is time we find simple practical ways of doing it.

SACRED - THE FILM

ABOUT US

The role of Muslims is to contribute towards the well being of humanity, and to be the conflict mitigaters and goodwill nurturers. Our goal is a secure world for every human. Please read the mission statement.

This group is about Muslims and their civic responsibilities in creating a dignified religious, social and civic space for themselves in the community of faiths. We do not distinguish between a Sunni, Shia, Ahmadiyya, WD Muhammad, Ismaili, Bohra or the subsets of each group, all believe in God, the Prophet and the accountability of their actions and whoever calls himself or herself a Muslim is a Muslim to us. Currently we are blessed to have our Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Bahai, Sikh and Buddhist friends among us to learn and share their perspective. This is our world and our God collectively.

MEMBERSHIP SINCE 2003

World Muslim Congress is a think tank, all are welcome to participate in the discussions, our scope is limited and defined in our mission statement. Currently, we have 1800 Members world wide with no membership fee.

To join the group, send an email to: WorldMuslimCongress-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com

WHAT WILL MUSLIMS DO WHILE QURAN IS BURNT

It is a purposeful positive event for Americans of different faiths, races, ethnicities and other uniqueness to come together to rededicate ourselves to our pledge; One nation under God with liberty and Justice for all. We will pray for peace, prosperity and security of our nation.

Last year the event focused on the positive response of Sikh community to the Wisconsin Shooting and this year, we will focus on the positive prayerful response of Muslim community to the planned Qur'an Burning by Pastor Terry Jones in Mulberry, Florida.

Click on pictures to see larger version of the photo

RSVP- ConfirmAttendance@gmail.comContact information - at the bottomPROGRAM DETAILSPictures indicate for visualization of the program as was done in Dallas, Texas We honor the free speech guaranteed in our constitution, and have no intentions to criticize, condemn or oppose Pastor Terry Jones freedom of expression. Instead, we will be donating blood and praying for goodness to prevail for the common good of the world. We hope, our mercy based message will remind those few Muslims elsewhere in the world that violence is not the way. We believe it may bring a change in the attitudes of followers of Pastor Jones, and in the behavior of those Muslims who reacted violently the last time Pastor sought notoriety.

Please join us for a life changing event, you will fall in love with the idea that all of us Americans will come together as Americans and nothing but Americans. While we have our identity, we look to each other as American and rededicate ourselves to our pledge; one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

You will be a part of history in creating a model behavior in dealing with conflicts and building a cohesive America, where no American has to live in apprehension or fear of the other.The 10th Annual event is moved to Mulberry, Florida - for a singular purpose - to mitigate possible apprehensions generated by the planned burning of 2998 copies of Quran on September 11, 2013. We hope the event restores our faith in the cohesiveness of America, and we the people will go on about our business of living our daily lives.The full press release: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/08/planned-muslim-response-to-quran_18.html

WE WILL GATHER;

to be together as Americans

to express our gratitude to our men and women in uniform

to honor individuals who have contributed to the well being of Mulberry, Florida

to emphasize and appreciate diversity represented by America.

to cherish the otherness of others.

to commit to be good neighbors

to rededicate our pledge to the peace, prosperity and security of America

Please join us with your family and friends to be together as Americans. Your presence is a valuable expression of unity. Along with our elected officials, civic, religious and business leaders, you help fulfill our common values and aspirations. Your presence fortifies our commitment to a pluralistic America.

As Americans, and as American of all hues, we uphold, protect, defend and celebrate the values enshrined in our constitution. All our faiths reinforce the creed of "One Nation under God, with liberty and justice for all”.

On this Unity Day USA, we, the people of the United States of America of every faith, race and ethnicity, will gather to express our commitment to co-existence, safety, prosperity and the well being of our nation.

PROGRAM: FLAG CEREMONY

NATIONAL ANTHEM

(Preferably joined in by members of at least 7 faith traditions, if not all)

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE:

To be led by the Hon. Mayor George Hatch of Mulberry

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgement of dignitaries- Suzanne

Thanking key volunteers - Curtis

Thanking the Media- Butch

Appreciating the sponsors - Lynn

PURPOSE

Purpose - a new positive approach to conflict mitigation and rededicating to our pledge – one nation under God with Liberty and Justice for all- Mike

Mayors, Police and Fire chiefs, and Civic Leaders to share 3 minutes each – about their responsibility in treating each citizen with respect and dignity

HONORING THE ACTIVISTS

Those who have stood up for others

SPIRITUAL LEADERS

All-inclusive spiritual leaders will be on stage representing each tradition, and lighting a candle of the next, a symbolic gesture to be the light to others. Every available religious American representation in Polk County will be accommodated. This is not about sermons but about being together as Americans. Please beware, it is about Americans and included in the group will be Atheists, Pagans and other non-religious traditions.

PEACE PLEDGE

I will I will speak up when there is injustice.

I will speak up when truth is not spoken.

I will make my words and my actions mitigate conflicts.

I will do my share in nurturing goodwill for the benefit of all.

I will do my share of peace work, without looking for others

I will do respect the God given uniqueness of each individual.

I will do my best to live and let others live their way.

I will do my best to nurture goodwill in everything I do.

SPECIAL MUSLIM PRAYER

( 3-4 Minutes)Muslim prayers and supplication for the safety and security and unity of our nation. Pray for the well being of all Americans, and seek forgiveness for all of us, and may God guide Reverend Terry Jones to become a be blessed peace maker. Pray for the goodwill of the people of Polk county and Mulberry City, and pray for a cohesive America, where no American needs to live in apprehension, discomfort or fear or fellow Americans.

Please donate to defray the costs. All donors over $100 will be listed on this site. If one or two individuals want to sponsor, we would really welcome it. It will save us time. Donate athttp://americatogetherfoundation.com/donate/ MESSAGES - PRESS RELEASES

We as Muslims plan to respond to pastor Terry Jones' planned burning of 3000 copies of Quran on September 11, 2013 in positive terms.

Our response - we will reclaim the standard of behavior practiced by the Prophet concerning “scurrilous and hostile criticism of the Qur’an” (Muhammad Asad Translation Note 31, verse 41:34). It was "To overcome evil with good is good, and to resist evil by evil is evil." It is also strongly enjoined in the Qur’an in the same verse 41:34, “Good and evil deeds are not equal. Repel evil with what is better; then you will see that one who was once your enemy has become your dearest friend.”

God willing Muslims will follow the divine guidance and pray for the restoration of Goodwill, and on that day many Muslim organizations will go on a “blood drive” to save lives and serve humanity with kindness.

We invite fellow Americans of all faiths, races, and ethnicities to join us to rededicate the pledge, “One nation under God”, and to build a cohesive America where no American has to live in apprehension, discomfort or fear of fellow Americans. This event is a substitute for our 10th Annual Unity Day Celebration (www.UnitydayUSA.com) held in Dallas, but now it will be at Mulberry, Florida.

Unwittingly Pastor Jones has done us a favor by invigorating us by his decision to burn nearly 3000 copies Quran on September 11, 2013. Obviously he is not satisfied by the notoriety he garnered by burning one Qur'an last year.

As Muslims and citizens we honor the free speech guaranteed in our constitution. We have no intentions to criticize, condemn or oppose Pastor Terry Jones' freedom of expression. Instead, we will be donating blood and praying for goodness to permeate in our society.

We plan to follow Jesus Christ (pbuh), a revered prophet in Islam as well as Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) – that of mitigating the conflicts and nurturing good will for the common good of the society.

We hope, this event and the message will remind Muslims elsewhere in the world as well, that violence is not the way. Muslims, who react violently to senseless provocation, should realize that, violence causes more violence, and besmirches the name of the religion that we hold so dear. We believe that Prophet Muhammad was a mercy to the mankind, and we ought to practice what we believe and preach. We must not insult Islam by the negative reactions of a few.

We can only hope it will bring about a change in the attitude of the followers of Pastor Jones, and in the behavior of those Muslims who reacted violently the last time Pastor sought notoriety – We hope this small step towards a bridge to peaceful coexistence would propel us towards building a cohesive society.

Like most Americans a majority of Muslims quietly go about their own business, but it is time to speak up and take positive action instead of negative reaction. May this message of peace and goodwill reverberate and reach many shores.

Lastly, we appreciate the Citizens of Mulberry, Florida, Honorable Mayor George Hatch, City Commissioners, police and Fire Chiefs for handing this situation very well. This will add a ‘feather of peace’ in the City’s reputation. We hope Mulberry will be a catalyst in showing the way in handling conflict with dignity and peace.

We thank the Media for giving value to the work towards peace rather than conflict.